Pond People

Flash still had nightmares about living behind glass walls in the pet shop, with faces staring in, and fingers pointing.

The faces here came even closer. When they pressed against the curved glass, they became demon faces.

The face that loomed most often belonged to the voice of Bethany. When she called out to the others, she didn’t move away, and her voice shook the water.

While the other mirlings hugged the curved edges of the base, staying as still as sludge, he swam among the fish. In the pet shop he had kept his distance from other mirlings whose clumsiness might get him noticed.

Eddy swam up to join him. Flash showed him how to swim in the shadow of the fishes’ fins, screened from human view.

Eddy had never been this close to humans. From the bottom of the pond, their faces hadn’t looked so different from mirlings’.

‘Their eyes are black in the middle like ours, but those brown rings are wider, and then they’ve got white bits.’

Flash didn’t need Eddy telling him what they looked like. He’d hoped never to look into human eyes again.

‘What are those flaps of skin that close over them? They’re like frogs’ lids, only thicker.’

Flash shrugged. It was bad enough in the pet shop, but these eyes stared from every side of the bowl. It was a relief when the children left to go shopping with their father.

On his return, Father carried in a large rectangular glass tank like the ones the pet shop sold. The children followed bearing carrier bags.

Father pulled a bunch of waterweed from one bag and dropped it into the fishbowl. A band of metal held the stalks together. It sank to the bottom, and the bunch settled against the side of the bowl. The fish swam to investigate, but the mirlings dare not move while human eyes were watching.

Father directed the children to clear a shelf by the wall. With all eyes turned away from the bowl, Walter pushed Amber towards the clump of weed and Sylva darted in after her, followed by the other mirlings.

Flash had no wish to study the humans – most of his efforts had gone into hiding from them – but Eddy wouldn’t drop the subject.

‘Those lumps on their faces make their nostrils point down, and they don’t ever close them. Maybe they can’t. And their gills stick out too. All those sticky-out bits must slow down their swimming.’

Flash couldn’t imagine them swimming. ‘Perhaps they’re like the cat and don’t want to get wet. They didn’t come into the pond.’

‘They’d need a bigger pond than ours. They’re huge.’

‘Their scales are tiny though.’ He was, after all, the pond mirlings’ expert on human faces. ‘You can’t see their scales, even this close.’

Eddy studied Bethany through the glass. ‘They don’t shimmer like ours either.’

Beth was equally fascinated by the fish, updating her family on every new discovery.

And she kept coming back.

The empty fish tank sat on the shelf against the nearest wall.

From the cover of the weed’s top branches, Flash watched Father line the tank with gravel and place an ornamental bridge in the centre. He moved it further to one side before positioning large stones around it, which were rearranged several times.

Molly swam up to where Flash was viewing the transformation. Walter followed, no doubt sent by Sylva to find out what was going on.

Father half-filled the tank with water, before pushing plant stems into the gravel around the stones. Finally, he reached behind the tank. Bubbles ascended from a tube at the back.

Bethany clapped. ‘Daddy, that’s cool. My fish will love living in there.’

Andre spoke from the doorway. ‘They’d like the p-pond better.’

She ignored him. ‘Can I put them in?’

‘Not yet,’ said Father. ‘We have to leave it a day or two and let the tank settle.’

‘Even though the water came from the p-pond?’ asked Andre.

‘It needs time for bacteria to build up in the filter.’ His father checked the instruction booklet again.

‘What are those b-black things on the glass?’

‘Water snails,’ Father tapped the glass and the tiny snail pulled in its feelers. ‘The man in the pet shop said they help keep the tank clean.’

Bethany turned from the tank to the bowl.

Fish and mirlings scattered, only to find Andre watching from the other side.

‘There’s something else swimming around in there. Like b-bugs.’

‘I expect they’re from the pond. They won’t do any harm. They’ll be live food for the fish.’

‘Can I feed the fish, Daddy?’

‘Not yet. They’ll be too stressed to eat after their move. Best to leave them for now.’

Bethany’s nose pressed against the glass. ‘I think those are baby fish. They’re hiding.’

Andre’s eyebrows drew together as he peered into the bowl. ‘There’s one! In the plant. It doesn’t swim like the other fish. It’s flipping up and d-down, instead of side to side.’

Father joined him.

After a moment, he shook his head. ‘I can’t see anything...’ He turned to Bethany. ‘Isn’t it past your bedtime, young lady?’

Cries of protest followed him out of the kitchen as he sent Bethany to get ready for bed and Andre to finish his homework.

‘That was close.’

Eddy could be relied on to state the obvious, thought Flash.

Molly, of course, could be relied on to give orders.

‘We must stay hidden when they’re in the kitchen. Even when they’re not, we ought to get used to swimming on our sides, so we flip from side to side – like fry wriggling – instead of up and down.’

He wished he’d thought of that.

‘But we’ll be slower if we try to swim sideways. They’ll have more time to spot us.’

‘She’s right though.’ Grandad was getting his colour back. ‘If they think we’re baby fish, they’re more likely to keep us when they move the fish to the tank.’

‘But the safest thing is to stay in the weed,’ Molly insisted, ‘and not be seen at all’.

Flash had no intention of staying imprisoned in a bunch of weed. Imprisonment behind glass was bad enough.

It would be harder to escape the tank, with its straight walls and lid, but he could be gone before then. If he could get out of this bowl and down to the floor…

Mojo’s water bowl would refresh his gills long enough to get him through the door, or under it. How far was the pond from the house?

There might be puddles. If it rained, the grass would be wet.

It was a lot of ifs, but he had a day or two yet, to plan his escape.